Mad O'Rourke's Pie Factory — Restaurant in Sandwell

This is a review for the hotel aspect of the pub (though I note that reviews have been mixed up between the two entries on TripAdvisor, so I will include our review for the pub itself as well). ||||What attracted me to this place as a hotel was its quirkiness, the large car park, and the uniqueness of the menu and the beers on offer. ||||The plus points are the quirkiness of the place, and the friendly and helpful (mostly female) staff. As the pub is very popular, to ensure getting a meal it's important to book in advance - though demand seems to fall off as it gets late, so it may sometimes be possible to get a meal after 8pm without booking. There are pies on offer for non-meat eaters, and we particularly enjoyed the jackfruit pie. Though, unless you want a heavy pie meal every night, the menu is a little limited for those staying for more than one night. ||||The beers are specially brewed for the pub by Dig Brew in Digbeth, Birmingham. All of them are tasty - my two favourites were the Lump Hammer Gold and the Sledgehammer Pale Ale. There are a little crude though, and have the flavour of a home brew about them. A little under fermented perhaps. However, it was a particular delight to be able to take a fresh pulled beer up to our room each night! ||||Even though busy, the girls at the bar were always relaxed and cool and ready for a little chat. ||||It is quite enterprising to turn the upstairs rooms into hotel rooms, though the rooms are not fully up to hotel standard. There isn't a suitable desk and chair. The furniture was chosen to look quirky rather than to be practical, and is very flimsy. Many of the rooms are not ensuite, and it is worth checking that you have got an ensuite room if that is important to you. Not all rooms have opening windows. The upstairs corridor and the bathrooms have motion sensitive lights which are particularly frustrating, and are the main reason why our rating tips to poor rather than on balance be average. All too often we had to walk in a dark corridor, vainly flapping our arms around to get the lights to work, then giving up and feeling for our door. In the bathroom, the light will go out while sitting on the toilet, causing more arm flapping. But worse is the light going out while using the shower, as it seems no amount of arm flapping will cause it to come back on unless you open the shower door. And then to cap it all, the light stays on when you leave the bathroom for several minutes, and we wondered just how much money and energy was actually wasted by this system because we always turn the light out when leaving the bathroom. |Grrrr. ||||Another aspect which helped tip this over into poor, is the thin walls, and poor design. We could clearly hear the neighbours - their snoring, their farting, and their use of the toilet (all details, not just the flushing noise). ||||Given the location and the basic features of the rooms, it seemed to us that this place would be mostly used by male contractors only stopping over for a day or two. It doesn't really seem to be appropriate for customers such as ourselves - a family having a holiday break in the area. ||||As regards the large car park. At busy times the car park...

This is a review for the hotel aspect of the pub (though I note that reviews have been mixed up between the two entries on TripAdvisor, so I will include our review for the pub itself as well). ||||What attracted me to this place as a hotel was its quirkiness, the large car park, and the uniqueness of the menu and the beers on offer. ||||The plus points are the quirkiness of the place, and the friendly and helpful (mostly female) staff. As the pub is very popular, to ensure getting a meal it's important to book in advance - though demand seems to fall off as it gets late, so it may sometimes be possible to get a meal after 8pm without booking. There are pies on offer for non-meat eaters, and we particularly enjoyed the jackfruit pie. Though, unless you want a heavy pie meal every night, the menu is a little limited for those staying for more than one night. ||||The beers are specially brewed for the pub by Dig Brew in Digbeth, Birmingham. All of them are tasty - my two favourites were the Lump Hammer Gold and the Sledgehammer Pale Ale. There are a little crude though, and have the flavour of a home brew about them. A little under fermented perhaps. However, it was a particular delight to be able to take a fresh pulled beer up to our room each night! ||||Even though busy, the girls at the bar were always relaxed and cool and ready for a little chat. ||||It is quite enterprising to turn the upstairs rooms into hotel rooms, though the rooms are not fully up to hotel standard. There isn't a suitable desk and chair. The furniture was chosen to look quirky rather than to be practical, and is very flimsy. Many of the rooms are not ensuite, and it is worth checking that you have got an ensuite room if that is important to you. Not all rooms have opening windows. The upstairs corridor and the bathrooms have motion sensitive lights which are particularly frustrating, and are the main reason why our rating tips to poor rather than on balance be average. All too often we had to walk in a dark corridor, vainly flapping our arms around to get the lights to work, then giving up and feeling for our door. In the bathroom, the light will go out while sitting on the toilet, causing more arm flapping. But worse is the light going out while using the shower, as it seems no amount of arm flapping will cause it to come back on unless you open the shower door. And then to cap it all, the light stays on when you leave the bathroom for several minutes, and we wondered just how much money and energy was actually wasted by this system because we always turn the light out when leaving the bathroom. |Grrrr. ||||Another aspect which helped tip this over into poor, is the thin walls, and poor design. We could clearly hear the neighbours - their snoring, their farting, and their use of the toilet (all details, not just the flushing noise). ||||Given the location and the basic features of the rooms, it seemed to us that this place would be mostly used by male contractors only stopping over for a day or two. It doesn't really seem to be appropriate for customers such as ourselves - a family having a holiday break in the area. ||||As regards the large car park. At busy times the car park...

Booked to stay in a room for the night. When we got there we checked in and were greeted by one of the most miserable staff members i've seen (I know customers are an inconvenience but the trick is to not let them know you hate them) We got taken up to the room by the "lovely" team member.

The room was nice and clean, we weren't expecting much for rooms above a pub but it was a bit sparse.

The TV was tiny and the HDMI didn't work so when we plugged our firestick in it didn't pick it up so we were stuck with freeview. The weather has been quite warm the last few days and there is no air con or even a fan in the room which was a bit annoying as we had to have the window open which was above the kitchen so we got the smell from the extraction wafting in.

When we went down to the pub to grab some food we went to the bar to order some drinks and were ushered towards a table. Our drinks order was taken and then we were pestered every few minutes to see if we were ready to order our food. When we were ready there wasn't anyone in sight and as soon as she'd taken the food order she walked off before I had chance to order another drink...this was a theme for most of the visit as we kept trying to get the attention of the servers but they were more interested in looking at their feet than actually serving customers.

Food was average, we've been before and it's never mind blowing, the "famous" battered chips were terrible and not really battered, quite dry and tasteless, probably would have been okay with some salt but we weren't offered condiments before the server disappeared. No check back during meal, finally managed to get the attention of someone to get a drink order and she got someone else who came over after about ten minutes, then waited another fifteen minutes for the drinks.

After meals we went back to the room, at this point we noticed that the toilet didn't flush properly and required pumping the flush to build it up to actually work. The double was i'm guessing two singles and one side of it either the mattress or the bed was partially collapsed so my partner barely slept, that combined with the noise from the road, customers leaving and extraction smells made it possibly the worst hotel experience we've had. Checking out in the morning wasn't very clear as we'd not been told what to do and there doesn't seem to be any staff on site at night so in the morning we ventured downstairs to see what we were supposed to do, luckily the cleaning staff were helpful and showed us out and the chap we spoke to was one of the only people who smiled while we were there. While we were waiting for our taxi another cleaner said hello and smiled at us and told us to have a good day...the cleaners are the reason this was a two star review...